Toshiba has announced it is the first manufacturer to achieve over half a terabyte of storage in a solid-state drive (SSD).{ad}

The new 512GB drive comes in a 2.5″ form factor and uses 43nm Multi-Level Cell NAND. As well as significantly boosting the storage capacity in an SSD Toshiba also claim big improvements in write speeds compared to drives from other manufacturers. The 512GB SSD is capable of 240MBps read speeds and 200MBps write speeds. For comparison Intel’s latest 80GB SSD has 250MBps read speeds, but only 70MBps write speeds.

Toshiba have also announced smaller capacity drives using the same improved technology. Manufacturers will be able to use 250GB, 128GB, and 64GB SSDs in either 2.5″ or 1.8″ form factors.

The pricing for the new drives has yet to be announced, but we can expect to see them appearing in laptops from the second-quarter of 2009.

Matthew’s Opinion
It looks like Toshiba has managed to move the bar in terms of write speeds, which has been one of the problems with using SSD. It needs to increase further, but that’s a significant improvement and especially significant when you compare it to the drives of other companies.

Price is still going to be an issue for any SSD solution and therefore these drives will remain a top-end option for people who don’t mind spending what is likely to be double the base system cost to get the 512GB option.

Toshiba believe 25% of laptops will have an SSD by 2012, so I don’t think we can expect to see prices fall to budget laptop pricing levels until after that. It is looking clear that SSD will eventually replace standard hard drives in the laptop market, but only if they continue to make these big gains in storage capacity and speed.

Intel X25-M 80GB 250/50
Intel X25-E 32GB 250/170
Easy mistake on both sides. I guess specify the model and not just point at the lowest end Intel to the highest end Toshiba.
But, thank you for the acticle Matthew